[SciPy-User] Strange memory limits

[Christopher Barker]

On 3/28/11 4:51 PM, David Baddeley wrote:
> what you're probably running into is a problem with allocating a
> continuous block of memory / a memory fragmentation issue.

On 3/28/11 8:01 PM, Charles R Harris wrote:

> Windows 32 bit gives you 2GB and keeps the rest for itself.

right -- I've had no problems running the same code with 32 bit python 
on OS-X that crashes out with memory errors on Windows -- similar hardware.

> Compiling as 64 bit might solve your problem, as, with 12 GB of memory,
> there will be a larger address space to look for contiguous blocks in,
> but probably doesn't address the fundamental issue.

Ah, but while you still may only have 12GB memory, with 64 bit Windows 
and Python, the virtual memory space is massive, so I suspect you'll be 
fine. Using 1GB memory buffers on 32bit is certainly pushing it.

> I suspect you could
> probably get away with having much smaller contiguous blocks (eg have 3
> separate arrays for the 3 different cameras) or even a new array for
> each image.

That would make it easier for the OS to manage the memory well.

-Chris


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